Here are 100 books that The Revolutionary Genius of Plants fans have personally recommended if you like
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants.
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I’ve always been drawn to the moments when things shift—when what once made sense stops making sense, and you have to find your way through. As a designer and leader, I’ve spent years learning to read change instead of resisting it. I’m passionate about this space because it’s where growth actually happens. These books remind me that clarity doesn’t come all at once; it arrives through attention, through relationship, and through the slow, often messy work of becoming.
I love this book because it changes the way I see the world every single time.
Powers writes with a patience that feels almost radical. I found myself slowing my breathing as I read, realizing how little I notice in the rush of daily life. I love how he blurs the line between human and nature, reminding me that we’re never outside the system—we are the system.
The Overstory humbles me, and because humility, to me, is where clarity begins.
The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of-and paean to-the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers's twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours-vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
When I was young, I used to ask every new person I met if they believed in magic. No caveats, no explanation of what I meant by that. Their response – generally either an unequivocal no, a tentative what does that mean, or a delighted yes, cemented the direction of our relationship.
One of my favorite quotes is Yeats’ statement that “the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” This conviction fuels my writing and my life. Whatever genre I write is informed first by magic, and there is no higher form of magic than the natural world and the science that explores it.
I discovered it and its author by listening to David Oakes’ nature podcast Trees A Crowd, which I devoured religiously every day while living in Alaska during the second year of the pandemic. I only intended it as research, but this book changed the composition of my soul.
It’s a fascinating and genuinely captivating exploration of one of the most evolved lifeforms on Earth. Their survival is essential to our own, and if we won’t learn from them, we’ll fall beside them. But more likely, they’ll outlast us!
"A paradigm-smashing chronicle of joyous entanglement that will make you acknowledge your own entanglement in the ancient and ever-new web of being."--Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast Are trees social beings? In this international bestseller, forester and author Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers. Wohlleben…
A house plant in my living room attacked another plant, wrapping itself around it and killing it. Then another plant tried to sink roots into a neighbor. I began to do a little research, then a lot of research, and learned that plants accomplish amazing feats. They can tell by the angle of the sun when spring is coming, and they can call parasitic wasps to rid themselves of caterpillars. Plants vastly outweigh and outnumber animals, so they run this planet. What if, on another planet, they could think like us… and that’s why I wrote a novel.
If you don’t know much about what plants can do, this is a great place to start.
Learn what a plant sees, smells, and feels. Yes, they can do all that. They know what color shirt you’re wearing. They can smell the warning from a neighbor plant being eaten by a bug. They know when you touch them. They know where they are, and they remember things. Plants are not passive, and they are acutely aware of the world around them.
How does a Venus flytrap know when to snap shut? Can it feel an insect's spindly legs? How do flowers know when it's spring? Can they actually remember the weather? And do they care if you play them Led Zeppelin or Bach? From Darwin's early fascination with stems and vines to "Little Shop of Horrors", we have always marvelled at plant diversity and form. Now, in "What a Plant Knows", the renowned biologist Daniel Chamovitz presents an intriguing and refreshing look at how plants experience the world. Highlighting the latest research in plant science, he takes us into the lives…
At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…
A house plant in my living room attacked another plant, wrapping itself around it and killing it. Then another plant tried to sink roots into a neighbor. I began to do a little research, then a lot of research, and learned that plants accomplish amazing feats. They can tell by the angle of the sun when spring is coming, and they can call parasitic wasps to rid themselves of caterpillars. Plants vastly outweigh and outnumber animals, so they run this planet. What if, on another planet, they could think like us… and that’s why I wrote a novel.
Blogger and podcaster Matt Candeias used to think plants were boring. Then, in college, he got a summer job in habitat restoration at an old quarry, and he fell in love.
He learned about the strange ways plants have sex, how they conquer new territories, and what animals they prefer to eat. Most of all, they fight for survival. It’s not exactly war, but there is never enough water, nutrients, space, and light, and there are always predators. Plants meet their challenges in surprising, wonderful ways.
So go outside, he says, and get to know your local plants like you know your friends.
"Matt Candeias succeeds in evoking the wonder of plants with wit and wisdom." James T. Costa, PhD, executive director, Highlands Biological Station and author of Darwin's Backyard
#1 New Release in Nature & Ecology, Plants, Botany, Horticulture, Trees, Biological Sciences, and Nature Writing & Essays
In his debut book, internationally-recognized blogger and podcaster Matt Candeias celebrates the nature of plants and the extraordinary world of plant organisms.
A botanist's defense. Since his early days of plant restoration, this amateur plant scientist has been enchanted with flora and the greater environmental ecology…
Hiking in the flower-covered hillsides of Central California as a nature-loving kid, I couldn’t help but wonder about my companions. One of my first purchases (with babysitting money!) was a wildflower guide. I’ve moved around the country many times and every time I’ve had to start over, make new plant acquaintances and discoveries—always an orienting process. Of course, I’ve also studied plants formally, in college and in my career, and (honestly, best of all) via mentors and independent study. All this has shown me that flowers are more than just beautiful! They’re amazingly diverse, and full of fascinating behaviors and quirks. In fact, they are essential parts of the complex habitats we share.
Most books about plant biology—trust me, I know, I have many!—are thick and complicated, decidedly not easy reading. This book, on the other hand, is a slim and accessible paperback. The author, a horticulture professor, has a wonderful and welcome knack for explaining things like how far roots spread, plant-cell biology, powerful and eccentric plant hormones, why and how sunflowers follow the sun, even when to prune your trees and shrubs. She’s smart, up-to-date, and entertaining.
Why do slugs prefer your lettuces to eating weeds which are just as tasty? Why do container plants wilt even though they have plenty of water? Linda Chalker-Scott tackles these and other questions gardeners ask and explains the plant physiology that is behind these everyday gardening challenges.
I’m a family therapist and author with a lot of experience in psychopathic behavior. Psychopathy falls on a spectrum – from a few traits to the extreme (serial killer) and everything in-between. Studies have shown that strong psychopathic behavior is common in our leaders – political, religious, business, and cultural. There’s also the psychopath “next door” – people we work, play, and live with. As an author, therapist, and researcher, I’m passionate about the subject – constantly examining psychopathic behaviors. I hope you enjoy my Broken Books Series which features different types of psychopaths in both the present and past, and my booklist that explores this fascinating subject.
I believe that mental health lies on a spectrum – a range of symptoms. Dr. Dutton explores the psychopathic spectrum – from serial killers to “functional” ones who live, work, and play among us. He maintains that we all have psychopathic tendencies in different amounts. He bases his ideas on the Psychopathic Checklist and the Psychopathic Personality Inventory as well as the latest research. This comes at a time when society, politics, and culture increasingly reward psychopathic behaviors by giving them what they crave – power, fame, and money. It helps readers fully understand the range and muscle of psychopaths.
'A surprising, absorbing and perceptive book. I found it altogether fascinating' PHILIP PULLMAN ______________________________________________________
Psychopath. No sooner is the word out than images of murderers, rapists, suicide bombers and gangsters flash across our minds.
But unlike their film and television counterparts, not all psychopaths are violent, or even criminal. Far from it. In fact, they have a lot of good things going for them. Psychopaths are fearless, confident, charismatic, ruthless and focused - qualities tailor-made for success in twenty-first-century society.
In this groundbreaking adventure into the world of psychopaths, renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals a shocking truth: beneath the hype…
Resonant Blue and Other Stories
by
Mary Vensel White,
The first collection of award-winning short fiction from the author of Bellflower and Things to See in Arizona, whose writing reflects “how we can endure and overcome our personal histories, better understand our ancestral ones, and accept the unknown future ahead.”
Kevin Davis is the author of three non-fiction books about the criminal
justice system, The Wrong Man,Defending the Damned and The Brain Defense. Davis has also authored eight
nonfiction children’s books. He’s an award-winning journalist and magazine
writer based in Chicago.
Adriane Raine has been studying the brains of convicted murderers for
decades and his fascinating and accessible book uses neuroscience to help
explain, though not excuse, their behavior due to anomalies and injuries to
their brains. Raine makes a strong case that various impairments to the brain
can inhibit the ability to put the brakes on impulsive, antisocial, and harmful
behavior.
Adrian Raine is one of the world's leading authorities on the minds of the violent, the criminal, the dangerous, the unstable. An Anatomy of Violence is the culmination of his life's work so far, offering the latest answers to some of the most difficult questions: what are the causes of violence? Can it be treated? And might it one day be stopped?
Are some criminals born, not made? What causes violence and how can we treat it? An Anatomy of Violence introduces readers to new ways of looking at these age-old questions. Drawing on the latest scientific research, Adrian Raine…
The world is growing more turbulent, and every leader today has to be ready to be a crisis leader. I have been studying and teaching leadership and crisis leadership at Harvard for more than two decades. I have deployed to major incidents such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and trained crisis teams around the world. I have seen that effective crisis leaders make “worst days” better. They unite and inspire, they protect communities, and, most important, they save lives. That’s why I have a passion to help current and aspiring leaders ready themselves and their organizations for whatever the world throws at them.
My work on crisis leadership uses applied neuroscience to help people get “smarter their brains” by learning to work with and, in some cases counteracting, their instinctual reactions and ingrained patterns.
Jensen, who has worked with elite athletes as well as executives, draws on some of the same science (and more) in a practical approach to how to handle pressure. He goes through how to use breathing to tame anxiety and increase focus.
One insight I’ve found particularly useful is remembering what’s not at stake in a high-stakes situation. No matter what happens, your family, friends, and pets will still love and support you, for example. Knowing what you can count on makes a seemingly overwhelming challenge more manageable.
What’s the most pressure you’ve ever been under? How did you react? What helped? What didn’t? Over the past five years, Dane Jensen has asked these questions of thousands of high performers—from Olympic gold medalists to Navy SEALs, politicians, executives and busy parents. What has emerged from these conversations is that while everyone’s experiences under pressure are unique, pressure follows patterns and develops in predictable ways. If we can recognize the patterns, we can improve our ability to sidestep the biological traps that can sabotage us—and use the energy that accompanies pressure to thrive. The…
All my life, I struggled to connect with people, but love and friendship evaded me. I constantly hurt others. Relationships were like a language I couldn’t understand. When people loved me, I knew that they were mistaken, because I was unlovable. Then, a neuroscientist told me something that changed my life: The way we connect with others—the oxytocin response—is wired into our brains in the first few years of life, before we can form conscious memories. That set me on the path of studying the neuroscience of love and connection. And I learned something amazing: I could change that wiring and learn to love.
When I was researching oxytocin, I traveled to Chicago and met John Cacioppo, a scientist who showed how loneliness affects our bodies and brains. So, I was intrigued to find this book by his wife, written after he died, that’s both science and a memoir of their marriage. A social neuroscientist, Stephanie Cacioppo explains why love is a biological necessity.
Love activates 12 specific brain regions, while desire has its own complementary brain circuits. Dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin come in for discussion, but this book focuses mainly on the activities of our brains, with surprising info, for example, that thinking about a loved one improves our cognitive ability. The combo of the personal and the scientific, along with research studies, makes for a good read.
From the world’s foremost neuroscientist of romantic love comes a personal story of connection and heartbreak that brings new understanding to an old truth: better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
At thirty-seven, Dr. Stephanie Cacioppo was content to be single. She was fulfilled by her work on the neuroscience of romantic love―how finding and growing with a partner literally reshapes our brains. That was, until she met the foremost neuroscientist of loneliness. A whirlwind romance led to marriage and to sharing an office at the University of Chicago. After seven years of being…
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through young adulthood. Miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are displaced from their land by multinational energy companies. They are taken…
I am an integrative child psychiatrist with a special focus on how screen-time detunes the nervous system, causing issues with sleep, mood, focus, and behavior. In fact, technology use is the most underestimated influence of our time; it causes problems whose connections aren’t always obvious, leads to misdiagnosis and overmedication, and wastes resources. I am passionate about helping children and families methodically reverse these changes using screen fast protocols that provide dramatic improvements in functioning and well-being. I speak regularly to parents’ groups, schools, and health providers, and my work has been featured on such outlets as NPR, CNN, NBC Nightly News, Psychology Today, and Good Morning America.
This gem of a book presents the argument that parents should consider delaying giving their children smartphones until the child becomes an adult and has attained certain life skills. A mother of four, former nurse, and founder of ScreenStrong, author Melanie Hempe lived through digital addiction in her own family and is passionate about helping other families avoid her “mistakes”. At the same time she is well-versed in the current scientific literature across a broad array of tech-related topics, and she successfully “walks the talk”: her teens abstain from gaming/social media/smartphone use, but they are far from being socially ostracized - a common fear amongst parents.
Parenting in the digital age is no easy task. Yet the answers may be closer and simpler than you think. RN by trade and mother of four, Melanie Hempe offers every parent the real solution to the smartphone dilemma. With scientific research on her side, Hempe offers a fresh perspective and innovative approach on the addictive role smartphones play in the lives of our children. Drawing on her own family's digital struggles and on her work with hundreds of families over the last seven years, Hempe’s advice empowers parents to go far beyond defining the problem to experiencing life-changing results.…
